Irish general election to be called this week.

Comments

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

It makes for a far better spectator sport than the UK though. Counting has been underway since 9am this morning and live Irish TV coverage of the results will continue until 2am and continue all day tomorrow!

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

I know that!
It's a critical statistic from any election and never seen here before (the result now, I mean)
The system has always been known as somewhat proportional, never strictly so. There is always a seat bounce for the party that gets their amount of candidates right and vote management right.
SF won't end up largest by seats, that is also known, they are looking at outside possibility of 2nd largest (a handful behind FF) but probably will be 1 or 2 behind FG

A party list system would probably have been fairer to Sinn Fein and, although it won't be admitted, I suspect the one individual most surprised and disappointed by the results so far is Micheál Martin who might have been expecting 50+ seats in the Dáil.

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

I know that!
It's a critical statistic from any election and never seen here before (the result now, I mean)
The system has always been known as somewhat proportional, never strictly so. There is always a seat bounce for the party that gets their amount of candidates right and vote management right.
SF won't end up largest by seats, that is also known, they are looking at outside possibility of 2nd largest (a handful behind FF) but probably will be 1 or 2 behind FG

A party list system would probably have been fairer to Sinn Fein and, although it won't be admitted, I suspect the one individual most surprised and disappointed by the results so far is Micheál Martin who might have been expecting 50+ seats in the Dáil.

They were expecting 60. Now it looks as if the very most they can expect to get is 45.

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

It works well for local council elections in Scotland though?

Anything is better than the crude first past the post system (including the Limited Vote and Single Non-Transferable Vote systems!) and I'd be fine with it for local elections in England and Wales.

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

It makes for a far better spectator sport than the UK though. Counting has been underway since 9am this morning and live Irish TV coverage of the results will continue until 2am and continue all day tomorrow!

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

I know that!
It's a critical statistic from any election and never seen here before (the result now, I mean)
The system has always been known as somewhat proportional, never strictly so. There is always a seat bounce for the party that gets their amount of candidates right and vote management right.
SF won't end up largest by seats, that is also known, they are looking at outside possibility of 2nd largest (a handful behind FF) but probably will be 1 or 2 behind FG

A party list system would probably have been fairer to Sinn Fein and, although it won't be admitted, I suspect the one individual most surprised and disappointed by the results so far is Micheál Martin who might have been expecting 50+ seats in the Dáil.

I'm not mad on party lists though I'm not mad about random surplus sampling in later counts here.
though I do know there are many partylist variations.

I think NI (assembly elections?) and Australia fully count the preferences on each count in PR-STV

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

I know that!
It's a critical statistic from any election and never seen here before (the result now, I mean)
The system has always been known as somewhat proportional, never strictly so. There is always a seat bounce for the party that gets their amount of candidates right and vote management right.
SF won't end up largest by seats, that is also known, they are looking at outside possibility of 2nd largest (a handful behind FF) but probably will be 1 or 2 behind FG

A party list system would probably have been fairer to Sinn Fein and, although it won't be admitted, I suspect the one individual most surprised and disappointed by the results so far is Micheál Martin who might have been expecting 50+ seats in the Dáil.

They were expecting 60. Now it looks as if the very most they can expect to get is 45.

I can't remember his name but earlier on in the day, RTÉ Radio 1 had a Fianna Fáil candidate who said that they'd been expecting 50 something seats and he refused to commit himself to power sharing with Sinn Fein, a grand coalition with Fine Gael or anything else saying it was up to the party leadership to decide after looking at the final situation, something like that.

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

It makes for a far better spectator sport than the UK though. Counting has been underway since 9am this morning and live Irish TV coverage of the results will continue until 2am and continue all day tomorrow!

A nerd, like me

It does lend itself to a more sophisticated electorate I think. 17 hours of live coverage on the main channel today, with all regular programming cancelled.

National first preference result is in after all 39 constituencies declared their first official count :

It's shocking to see how far Labour has fallen - their high point was 19% in the 1992 general election.

Yes, I think the rug has been pulled from under them by other left wing parties like SF and PBP. People are not entirely sure what Irish Labour stands for these days and where they fit on the political spectrum - another problem is that their front bench looks old and jaded.

SF 99% guaranteed now to be the largest party in Ireland on share on the vote

Varadkar still not elected on Count 4...

It might be on first preference votes alone but that doesn't necessarily translate into largest share of seats in the Dáil not least because the Single Transferable Vote system doesn't necessarily translate into pure proportionality even when later preference votes are taken account of.

For a supposedly proportional system, it's not actually that good when compared with other proportional voting systems so calling it broadly proportional would be a better description and so I would be surprised if Sinn Fein ended up as the largest party.

It works well for local council elections in Scotland though?

It's far better than FPTP, but any sort of constituency system means you've got to have a compromise - you can't really represent percentages very accurately if you've only got, say, four seats to play with.

Though probably just reflecting what is going on in society. I saw one of the panelists on RTE saying this evening that people are becoming much more individualistic and discerning in their politics (which is no bad thing).

One of the chief reasons British politics is in a state of almost disaster at the moment is that it won't allow this fragmentation. You're given a choice of two quite terrible parties and sets of politicians.

National first preference result is in after all 39 constituencies declared their first official count :

It's shocking to see how far Labour has fallen - their high point was 19% in the 1992 general election.

Yes, I think the rug has been pulled from under them by other left wing parties like SF and PBP. People are not entirely sure what Irish Labour stands for these days and where they fit on the political spectrum - another problem is that their front bench looks old and jaded.

Moreover, one of the lesser-noted successes of this election has been the Social Democrats - pulled off something of a "Hail Mary" gain in Cork South West, and with realistic prospects of 6 seats, they probably will be larger than Labour.